Afghanistan’s Corruption Slide

Afghanistan’s new score in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index is not just another bad headline; it is a warning light that keeps getting brighter. In the 2025 CPI, Afghanistan scored 16 out of 100 and ranked 169 out of 182 countries and territories. That is a small drop from the year before, but the direction matters more than the size of the move when a country is already near the bottom; even a one-point slide signals that whatever checks existed are weaker, not stronger.

It is also hard to ignore the trend line. Local and regional reporting around the CPI notes Afghanistan at 17 points in 2024, 20 in 2023, and 24 in 2022. The Taliban came to power promising order and an end to theft, but the index is telling the world that confidence in clean public administration is not rising. Of course, the CPI measures perceptions drawn from multiple expert and business surveys, not a direct audit of every bribe or stolen contract.

Still, perceptions are nothing. Perceptions shape investment, aid decisions, and whether ordinary people feel the state is fair

Some defenders of the current authorities will argue that Afghanistan is suffering from inherited rot, sanctions, and a collapsed economy, and that any system would look corrupt in that environment. There is truth in the first half of that argument. Afghanistan has lived for decades with patronage networks, politicized courts, and a war economy that rewarded connections. But the second half is a dodge. Bad conditions make integrity harder, not optional. In a fragile state, corruption is not a side issue; it becomes the operating system. It decides who gets jobs, who gets permits, who can move goods through customs, and who receives humanitarian help on time.

One reason the CPI matters is that it lines up with what Afghans often describe in daily life: power without transparency breeds petty extraction and big favoritism. When civic space shrinks, the cost of reporting corruption rises, and the chances of reform fall. The CPI 2025 analysis highlights a broader pattern across many countries: attacks on independent civil society and weakened checks and balances create room for abuses of power.

Afghanistan fits that pattern in an extreme form because the institutions that usually expose corruption, parliament, independent courts, investigative media, and competitive politics are either absent or constrained

It is telling that the global story is also moving in the wrong direction. The CPI 2025 overview reports that the global average fell to 42, with more than two-thirds of countries scoring below 50. That means Afghanistan’s failure is not happening in isolation; it is part of a wider loss of momentum on clean governance. But Afghanistan’s position remains uniquely damaging because it combines very low administrative trust with deep poverty. In richer countries, corruption wastes money. In Afghanistan, corruption can decide who eats and who does not.

The contrast with the top of the ranking is painful but useful. In the same index, Denmark, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, and Norway sit among the least corrupt, while South Sudan, Somalia, and Venezuela sit at the bottom, with Yemen and Libya also among the worst performers. The lesson is not that Afghanistan should copy a Scandinavian welfare state overnight. The lesson is simpler: countries that perform well build predictable rules, publish information, and punish insiders, not just outsiders. They do not rely on morality speeches. They rely on systems that make corruption risky and inconvenient.

So why is Afghanistan sliding instead of stabilizing? My view is that the Taliban’s governing model creates incentives for corruption even when leaders sincerely dislike it. A closed political order concentrates discretion, and discretion is fuel for bribery. If permits, contracts, and court outcomes depend on personal approval rather than published criteria, then influence becomes a currency.

Add low public sector salaries, an economy that pushes people into survival mode, and a lack of independent oversight, and you get a market for favors. Even when top leaders issue strict orders, local officials can still extract rents because citizens have nowhere safe to complain

If Afghanistan wants to stop this fall, the first step is to treat transparency as a security issue, not a public relations luxury. Publish national and provincial budgets in usable detail. Publish procurement decisions with prices and bidders. Create a credible audit function that can report publicly, not privately. Digitize revenue collection where possible, especially customs and taxes, so money moves through traceable channels rather than hands. None of this requires instant international recognition. It requires political will to accept scrutiny.

The second step is to rebuild accountability pathways that do not depend on one faction policing itself. That means allowing independent journalists to work without fear, protecting whistleblowers, and creating complaint mechanisms that actually lead to consequences. The CPI 2025 analysis stresses that restricting civic space weakens the fight against corruption. Afghanistan cannot improve while people are punished for naming problems.

Corruption thrives in silence, and silence is easy to enforce in the short term, but it is expensive in the long term

Finally, outside actors should be honest about their own role. The CPI’s global decline shows that many governments are backsliding, not just Afghanistan. When international aid is delivered through opaque channels, or when sanctions and exemptions create shadow markets, corruption risks grow. Donors and agencies should demand transparency from their partners and from themselves, with clear reporting on contracting and delivery. But they should also avoid creating incentives for smuggling and middlemen by designing policies that ignore how people actually survive.

Afghanistan’s CPI score of 16 is a snapshot, but the real story is the direction and what it says about trust. A country does not escape corruption by declaring it un-Islamic, or by arresting a few low-level offenders, or by blaming the past forever. It escapes by building routines where rules are known, decisions are documented, and complaints do not get you hurt. If Afghanistan continues to slide, the cost will not be paid in rankings. It will be paid in hollow institutions, lost investment, weaker services, and a public that expects theft as normal. That is the most dangerous kind of corruption, the kind that becomes boring.